India restricts vaccine exports, blow to Covax program

Alternative sources of vaccines against covid-19 looking for Asian countries following India’s decision to cut vaccines, cut exports, a decision affecting the World Health Organization program to provide vaccines to the poorest countries.

South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines are among the countries affected by the delays in vaccine exports against covid-19, which they are to receive through the COVAX program.

“The planned increase in the number of vaccinations per day will be affected,” said Carlito Galves, head of the Philippines’ vaccination campaign.

According to AMPE, India, the largest producer of vaccines, has suspended exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine against covid-19, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), as it tries to meet domestic demand first.

SII was to deliver 90 million doses vaccine at the COVAX mechanism during March and April. Although it has not yet been clarified how many doses New Delhi will hold for domestic use, program mediators have warned that delays are inevitable.

South Korea has confirmed that it will receive only 432,000 doses out of the promised 690,000, which will be delivered late in the third week of April.

“There is uncertainty about the global supply of vaccines, “But we are drawing up a plan to ensure that there will be no disruption in the second quarter and we are working to get more vaccines,” said Kim Kin-nam, head of South Korea’s covid-19 vaccination program.

Officials explained that they are in talks with AstraZeneca to expedite the delivery of the installments they have secured under another agreement.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has eased government restrictions on private-sector vaccine imports, urging companies to find stocks regardless of cost, as the country faces a resurgence of its pandemic. coronavirus.

In Vietnam, officials have called on the private sector to try to reach agreements on the purchase of vaccines against covid-19 as supplies to the country through the COVAX program were reduced by 40% to 811,200 installments and deliveries would be delayed for weeks. .

In Indonesia, a health ministry official said the 10.3 million doses of vaccines the country would receive through COVAX are expected to be delayed and delivered in May.

India has not said how long the suspension of vaccine exports will last, but UNICEF, COVAX’s partner in vaccine distribution, said at the weekend that deliveries were expected to resume by May.

The New Delhi decision is another problem facing the COVAX, on which 64 poor countries rely for their population vaccination campaign against covid-19, following production problems and a lack of funding from rich countries.

China and Russia

China and Russia are expected to rush to fill some gaps. “We have good diplomatic relations with China and Russia and we ask them if we can have access to their vaccines in April,” Galves said.

Both the Philippines and Indonesia currently rely heavily on the Chinese Sinovac vaccine. The Philippines and Vietnam have approved the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, as well as more than 50 other countries, mainly developing. Manila is expected to receive a first batch of the Russian vaccine in April.

Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm, meanwhile, plans to produce its covid-19 vaccine at a new plant in the United Arab Emirates.

Restrictions on vaccine exports are also being felt in richer countries, such as Japan, where the vaccination campaign is slow because of the small number of Pfizer vaccines exported from Europe.

“Some use vaccines for diplomacy, some set priorities. Some people buy three to five times more vaccines than their population. It is not necessary, “said Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, who is in charge of the vaccination campaign, in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

“We really need world leaders to sit down and think that this is a global issue, not a domestic one, and try to solve it together.”